Sup With the Devil

“Which I expect is what fascinated Miss Woodleigh the most,” remarked Abigail. “No wonder she pursued him.”

“That I wouldn’t know, m’am,” said the servant. “But Saturday she leaped up from where she was sitting beside Pugh and cried out that she counted the days ’til she and Mr. George could be wed, and Mr. Pugh got pretty red in his face and said as how Miss Woodleigh would favor Pedro—that’s one of his own grooms, m’am, a savage straight from Africa—if he was to dress up in a red coat, or a monkey for that matter, and added that to get Mr. George’s notice she’d have to stand in line behind half the tavern-maids in the countryside. Mr. George flung himself straight off Sassy’s back onto Mr. Pugh and threw him down the porch steps, then leaped down after him and beat him to the ground. Made him look no-how, and sent him off with a blooded nose and a lesson about bandying a woman’s name in front of a troop of cavalry. He was like that,” he added quietly, his voice altering. “No, she wasn’t his affianced—and it rubbed him, I think, to hear her go on about it—but he wouldn’t hear her slandered, not if she was a scullery-maid.”

In the stillness that followed, a sharp-shouted command could be heard from the Common, followed by the ragged thunder of musket-fire. It was only the men drilling, Abigail knew, yet the sound made her shiver.

From here to the Kennebec, every village and town has formed militia . . .

Stockpiling powder and muskets in Concord . . . What good that will do against trained troops . . .

Civil war. The words filled her with dread, echoing the bloody chaos that had brought down the Republic of Rome. She remembered Joseph Ryland’s grave face as he watched men less competent than he step ahead of him to take George Fairfield’s place in command.

It is our duty, as subjects of the King, to keep it from degenerating to such a pass that the French or the Spanish think themselves safe to come in and take over these colonies for themselves . . .

And young George Fairfield, riding here and there through Massachusetts, raising a company of gentlemen loyal to the King . . .

She forced her mind back to the man before her. One thing at a time . . .

“And nothing further came of it?”

“No, m’am. Mr. George was a little more careful after that about hiding—well, hiding things that might get him into trouble if it should come to Dr. Langdon’s ears that he had them in his room—”

“Like his rum?” asked Abigail. And then, sinking her voice to a whisper—though Congreve’s attention had been drawn to a confusion of angry shouting from the direction of the nearby tavern on Church Street—“Or his books?”

“You know about his books, m’am?” Diomede’s voice lowered to match hers, and behind Abigail, Horace coughed again and fished for another clean handkerchief.

“I know he had them.”

The servant sighed, and his face creased with vexation. “I told him—Well, they were mighty tempting books. But I did warn him, after he wouldn’t sell them to Mr. Pugh, that Mr. Pugh would turn around and use them to get him into trouble—report him to Dr. Langdon and get him sent down. Dr. Langdon being a great Whig and always crying out for the colony’s liberties. Everyone in the college knew he was just looking for a reason to get Mr. George turned out . . .”

“Mr. Pugh tried to buy those books?”

“Yes, m’am.” Diomede looked apologetic. “Right after Mr. George bought them from poor Mrs. Seckar, almost three weeks ago now it was. Knowing Mr. Pugh and half thinking the offer might just be a way of learning if Mr. George had them, so he could report him to the provosts, Mr. George refused to admit he had them. But the day after this to-do at Mr. Woodleigh’s, the Sunday evening, Pugh sent Eusebius, that other black African of his, to me with five pounds, m’am—five pounds!—for me to steal them and get them to him—”

“How did he know of them in the first place?”

The slave shook his head. “That I don’t know, m’am.”

Abigail was silent, thinking about the young man who’d come striding breezily out onto the landing, crying, Good Lord, get that woman out of here!

About the handsome young face lying so still on the pillow in the instant before Dr. Perry had twitched the sheet over it.

It seemed impossible that she’d known him for less than twelve hours.

“Does Mr. Pugh have any white hangers-on?” she asked quietly. “A dark-haired gentlewoman whose name may or may not be Mrs. Lake? Or a man with a scar like this”—she made a V of her fingers and pressed it to the left side of her face—“over his eye? Have you ever seen a man with a scar like this in Cambridge? Or in the countryside round about?”

Diomede turned the matter over in his mind. “No, m’am. I wish—” He looked aside, his features twisting with the effort to control them. “This is my fault, m’am, and I know it’s my fault—”

“’Tis nothing of the kind,” said Abigail firmly.

“If I hadn’t been drunk—”

“Then whoever did this would have found some other way of drugging you. The drug was meant for him as well as you, Diomede . . .”

“But they knew! They knew I have this weakness—”

“Pish-tush! There isn’t a servant on Earth who doesn’t drink his master’s rum when his master isn’t looking. ’Twas only chance that Mr. Fairfield woke when the intruder came in, and cried out—”

“No,” whispered Diomede, and clasped his hands together, pressing the knuckles for a moment to his lips. “I swear to you, m’am, when I woke up—when I heard what had happened . . . It was my fault, the same as if I had got up and used that knife myself—”

“Stop it!” ordered Abigail. “What you’re saying does no one any good and will only confuse the search for Mr. Fairfield’s real killer.” But her heart sank within her, for she guessed that was precisely what Charles Fairfield was going to say when he came north from Virginia to collect his son’s body . . . and to avenge himself on those responsible for his son’s death. “Can you write, Diomede?”

“Yes, m’am. Mr. Charles’s father—old Mr. George—he didn’t hold with servants being ignorant. I was made to do lessons alongside Mr. Charles and his sisters.”

“Could you write out what you’ve told me? About the fight with Mr. Pugh and his attempts to bribe you, and about Mr. George’s books that he bought from Mrs. Seckar? Write it in your own words, everything that you can remember. Mr. Congreve, do you have any objection to that? Weyountah, if you could see to it that Diomede has pen and paper—”

The Indian—who at Horace’s nervous insistence had been listening to Horace’s heartbeat—nodded, and Congreve said, “For all the good it’s like to do you, m’am. I tell you, I’ve met these Virginia planters—”

“Which is exactly why every effort should be made to get the case heard here in Massachusetts—Yes, Horace, I’m sure you’re quite all right; your coloring looks just as it should. With sworn statements in hand, I think my husband will have a better chance of at least getting a trial here—”

The slave closed his eyes for a moment, his face immobile; then he whispered, “Thank you, m’am,” in the voice of one who knows perfectly well that miracles do not happen. “I’ll do as you ask and have it for you if you should come here again. But if you would, m’am—could I trouble you, if I were also to write out a letter to my wife and to our daughters back in Virginia? Would you see that it’s sent to them?”

“Of course.” Then another thought occurred to her, and she dug in her pocket for the elegant love-letters. Lowering her voice to exclude the sheriff—who might not approve of a young lady’s letters being viewed by a slave—she asked, “Does this handwriting look familiar to you, Diomede?”

He responded immediately, “Yes, m’am.” And—taking the letters, with his own swift glance toward Congreve, who seemed to be preoccupied with the shouting from the Common—he whispered, “It’s Miss Woodleigh’s, m’am.”

“Let me see those—” Horace held up his hand to stay her from tucking them away, as he, Abigail, and Weyountah stepped into the sunlight of Church Street.

“Is he right?” Abigail glanced up at Weyountah, who was looking around Horace’s shoulder. “You tutored her—”

“That’s her hand, yes.”